Education & Training

PhD Program

The PhD in Bioethics and Health Policy Program is taught by leading experts in the fields of bioethics and health policy, who provide unparalleled training, education and mentoring to the next generation of bioethics scholars. This PhD program is unique in the opportunities it affords students to conduct innovative original scholarship in a premier international research institution, focused specifically on public health ethics and bioethics and health policy.

Scholarly Life at the Berman Institute

Students in the Bioethics PhD program constitute a vital and important part of the academic community at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Students are encouraged to participate fully in a wide range of scholarly, teaching and public engagement activities. These include participating in the semi-annual ‘research retreats’ at which faculty, fellows, and students present works-in-progress, and attending the Berman Institute’s bi-monthly seminar series at which prominent scholars from other institutions lecture on emerging research interests.

The PhD program in bioethics and health policy is a concentration within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM), offered in collaboration with the Berman Institute of Bioethics. For complete information, including admissions requirements, visit the Department of HPM’s PhD Concentration in Bioethics & Health Policy website.

The PhD program in Bioethics and Health Policy is distinguished from other bioethics doctoral programs in two ways:

The PhD program focuses on bioethics as it relates to moral questions in public health and health policy (rather than, for example, in clinical decision-making or bedside dilemmas).

Students and faculty in this concentration study and conduct independent research on ethical issues in public health practice, research, and policy such as: ethics and emergency preparedness, domestic and international research ethics, genetic screening policy, ethics and obesity prevention, ethics and infectious diseases, resource allocation and social justice.

The PhD program provides rigorous training in quantitative and qualitative empirical research methods.

By the end of their PhD training, students are prepared to provide not only normative recommendations regarding ethics and public health policy but also are equipped to function as independent researchers, conducting empirical research related to bioethics, public health and health policy.

Our PhD program focuses on bioethics in public health and health policy and provides rigorous training in quantitative and qualitative empirical research methods.

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Current PhD Students

PhD Student

PhD Student

PhD Student

PhD Student

Theo Schall, MSW, MBE

PhD Student

Program alumni

Our PhD alumni go on to successful and prominent careers in the field of bioethics. Our alumni include:

1999
Sara Chandros Hull, PhD
Faculty
Section on Ethics of Genetics and Emerging Biotechnology

Department of Bioethics Clinical Center
National Institutes of Health

Director Bioethics Core
Office of the Clinical Director
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institutes of Health

Holly Taylor, PhD, MPH
Department of Bioethics
Clinical Center
National Institutes of Health

Senior Associate
Department of International Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Andrea Kalfoglou, PhD
Associate Professor
Health Administration and Policy Program
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

2001
Jane Forman, ScD, MHS
Investigator
Co-Leader, Methods Core
VA Center for Clinical Management Research
Ann Arbor HSR&D Center of Innovation

2003
Julia Slutsman, PhD
Director
Research Regulatory Affairs
The Children’s Research Institute
Children’s National System

2006
Neal Dickert, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Cardiology
Emory University School of Medicine

Summer Johnson McGee, PhD
President
Salem Academy and College

2007
Ingrid Burger, MD, PhD
Associate Radiologist
Chief of Ultrasound
Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center

2008
Carlton Haywood, Jr., PhD, MA
Assistant Professor
Division of Hematology
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Core Faculty
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Core Faculty
Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research

2009
Jason Gerson, PhD
Senior Program Officer
Clinical Effectiveness and Decision Science
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

2012
Jessica Holzer, PhD
Assistant Professor
Health Administration and Policy Department

School of Health Sciences
University of New Haven

2013
Krista Harrison, PhD
Associate Professor
Division of Geriatrics
School of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco

JP Leider, PhD
Senior Lecturer, University of Minnesota Division of Health Policy Management
Affiliate Faculty, Center for Bioethics

Independent Consultant
Public Health and Health Policy

2014
Danielle Whicher, PhD, MHS
Researcher
Mathematica Policy Research

2015
Amy Paul, PhD, MPH
Technical Advisor
United States Agency for International Development

Carleigh Krubiner, PhD
Policy Fellow
Center for Global Development

Research Scholar
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Lee-Lee Ellis, PhD, MA
Health Care Director
Arnold Ventures

2017
Lelia Jamal, PhD, MSc
Associate Director of Cancer Genomics
National Cancer Institute, NIH

2018
Rachel Fabi, PhD
Assistant Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine
Center for Bioethics and Humanities, SUNY Upstate Medical University

2021
Michael DiStefano, PhD
Assistant Scientist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dept. of Health Policy Management
Affiliate Faculty, Berman Institute of Bioethics

Christian Morales, PhD

Program Faculty

Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH

Core Faculty; Berman Institute Founder; Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics

Kadija Ferryman, PhD

Core Faculty; Assistant Professor

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH

Core Faculty; Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director; Robert Henry Levi and Ryda Hecht Levi Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy

Nancy E. Kass, ScD

Core Faculty; Deputy Director for Public Health; Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health

Maria Merritt, PhD

Core Faculty; Associate Professor

Stephanie Morain, PhD, MPH

Core Faculty; Assistant Professor

Brendan Saloner, PhD

Core Faculty; PhD Program Director; Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health

Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA

Core Faculty; Deputy Director for Medicine; Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Bioethics and Medicine